Bad blood over birds turned to tragedy

KEVIN WATERS is a devastated man. The tow-trucking king never thought a call for help would end in the death of a much-loved and respected local policeman.

On Saturday, as a stream of visitors entered his sprawling Oakville property, detectives visited Mr Waters to once again walk through the fateful events of Thursday afternoon when veteran police officer Bryson Anderson died.

According to Mr Waters, the conflict with his neighbours Fiona Barbieri, 45, and her son, Mitchell, 19, started years ago with constant aggression from the pair, who would fire arrows and threaten his rare collection of thousands of exotic birds.

They had erected signs facing his property reading, ''be gone with you'' and ''we rebuke you''. However, according to Mr Barbieri, Mr Waters had ruined the idyllic surrounds of Scheyville Road on Sydney's north-western outskirts.

The teenager had made aggressive and unsubstantiated internet posts before last week's encounter, accusing Mr Waters of turning the area into ''yet another criminal hive in Sydney''.

''Our district … once had the feel of A Country Practice's Wandin Valley,'' he wrote.

Mr Waters has made headlines in the past for being awarded tow-truck contracts in controversial circumstances, and for hiring and providing a character reference for a Comanchero bikie club member who took a car from the business's Blacktown yard and used it to abduct a man he later killed.

There is no suggestion Mr Waters has ever committed any crime.

The bitter dispute, however, came to a dramatic head at 2pm on Thursday when police attended the neighbouring properties answering reports Mr Barbieri was firing crossbow arrows at a tradesman working on Mr Waters's property.

The Barbieris allegedly barricaded themselves inside the house and fired arrows at arriving officers.

After a two-hour stand-off, Inspector Anderson went around to the back entrance of the brick bungalow to negotiate with the pair.

However, Mrs Barbieri allegedly swung at officers with a mallet and her son allegedly lunged out from the back door with a knife, fatally stabbing Inspector Anderson in the neck. Now a prime witness in a murder case, Mr Waters refused to comment to Fairfax Media.

An employee of his tow-truck business said on Saturday he was ''shaken up'' by the tragic sequence of events.

Fiona and Mitchell Barbieri have been refused bail on murder charges.

Fairfax Media understands police have tried to speak to them to ascertain why they allegedly turned on officers so violently, but both have been too ''off the planet'' to talk coherently, according to an investigator.